Stockholm Syndrome
by amberpire
Summary: But today, she's dragging me to the bathroom. Today, she's checking the stalls and throwing the lock. Today, she pulls me into the handicap bathroom stall and forces me to my knees. ;Cat/Jade;


It's red behind my eyelids.

I focus on that and not on the teacher because education never did anything for me. He's talking about how to convey things like sadness and depression when in front of an anxious audience, but it's not like he needs to because most of us teenagers are good at that without having to try. Teenagers are just sad. Teenagers that don't have cars with doors that open up and don't have parents that love each other and don't have people that really need them.

Also known as: every American teenager.

Also known as: me.

I draw shapes on the insides of my eyes with my pupils. Things like flowers. And then the flowers have faces and they're talking in flower gibberish and I don't know what's going on anymore but the flower is sad, too, like what the teacher is talking about. I can hear the clock behind me, ticking the session away, bringing us closer and closer to the bell so I can get out of here, this labyrinth of sad hallways with sad kids and happy kids and back home, with more sad people.

I crack my eyes open. There are no windows in this room and it's dark and the boys on either side of me are falling asleep, heads rolling forward. I focus on the pencil in my right hand, the pink plastic and the stick of black graphite that everyone calls lead.

Nothing is what we call it.

Nothing is what we want it to be.

I press my pencil to the desk with enough pressure to crack the graphite, sending sprinkles of dust across the wood surface. And the teacher drones on in front of me. In front of us, but in this room full of sleeping adolescents I feel like I'm the only one without substance and, in that, I'm alone.

"You have to work your emotions into your face - you have to contort the muscles, make that lower lip tremble -"

What he doesn't know is that the best kind of sadness is portrayed without using any of that. The best kind is just in the eyes and the flat lips.

Most people could be actors. We all fake things. We all pretend to be happy or sad or entertained or tired or sick. We're all actors. It's just a matter of facing a crowd or a camera and holding a microphone and doing it there.

There's a rap of knuckles on the door, but I only hear it because the door is right behind me. Kids turn to look. I don't. I finally find myself terribly interested in what Mr. Nickson has to say. I suddenly find myself yearning to know how to show stage sadness and make people in audiences everywhere cry tears of sympathy for something that isn't real.

Because I don't want to look behind me.

Because I don't want to see her standing with one hand on the slope of her hip and the other idly playing with a strand of dark hair.

Because I don't want to say yes and follow her.

Because I don't want to want to.

"Sorry, Mr. Nickson. Can I have Catherine Valentine, please? It's for the yearbook."

I look up. Mr. Nickson is looking at me, all old with his white hair and big glasses that magnify his eyes. I'm surprised that he even knows who I am. We've had few and brief conversations which mostly revolve around him telling me that I did a good job but need to tone down on the false happiness.

I'm either really good or terrible.

Depending on if you're an acting instructor or someone I bump shoulders with on the street.

I'm not even on the yearbook staff.

Mr. Nickson finally nods and I stand, leaving my stuff behind and turning. I don't look at her. I just look at her shoes. They're black flats. They have little bows on them. She's not wearing pants today. I mean, she's wearing a skirt. I wish she wasn't because it makes it really hard not to let my eyes travel up the length of her legs.

I stop at her knees because she's reaching out, taking my shoulder in this really gentle grasp and pulling me out of the classroom. The door shuts and there's no more teaching me how to fake sadness because I don't have to, and then there's a hooked finger under my chin and forcing it up. And there's her eyes, like coal. Burning, smoking, ugly coal.

And I could look into them all day.

Every day.

Even if they burned me.

She's looking at me and I don't know what my face is telling hers, but she must approve, because a grin is creeping up on her features. It's about as close to evil as a facial expression can get. She's a villain. I know that.

And I'm the weak victim who is too stupid to do anything about it. I'm no hero, not even for myself.

"I thought we could go somewhere for a - break." If at all possible, that grin cracks wider until I see her teeth and the corners seem to reach her ears. She looks angry and excited all at the same time.

And I think she's beautiful.

Obviously, there is something wrong with me.

Also known as: insanity.

She snakes her hand in my mine. Her fingers fill the spaces and squeeze and I don't say anything, I just follow her. I struggle to keep up with her. I'm only thinking about how our hands are linked like a romantic couple would do and even though I know there's nothing romantic about this, I'm always hoping one day she'll see me as more than she does now.

A fuck buddy.

An easy lay.

Something she can screw when she can't find Beck.

But maybe not tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow she'll say something sweet. Maybe tomorrow she'll tell me I look pretty.

But today, she's dragging me to the bathroom. Today, she's checking the stalls and throwing the lock. Today, she pulls me into the handicap bathroom stall and forces me to my knees.

And I'm under her skirt and she smells wet and she's bare and waiting.

At least here, panting between her legs as she stand over me and bends her knees, I feel like I'm needed. Like if I didn't do this for her, Jade would have no one else.

But she would. There's always someone else.

But in this moment, Jade picked me. She looked for me. She's wet for me, and that has to mean something.

Her hands tangle in my hair and it hurts when she pulls me up and she bends down. She's grinding into my face. My eyes close. I breathe through my nose and my scalp screams where the hair is pulled. Jade's other hand is sprawled on the wall, holding herself up.

Her knees are shaking and I like to think as I sit there with my tongue lapping in and out of her that that's because it's me doing it and not just the act itself. And after a few minutes when she releases this high-pitched, puppy sound and her thighs tremble around my face, I like to think that it's because she wants me so badly. I like to think she wants me as badly as I want her.

She steps back. Straightens her skirt. Bends down to my level and pats my wet cheeks. Her hands are warm. I'm soaked in my jeans but she doesn't even look at them. She never does. But she's beautiful in the florescent lights, her smoky eyes dark and smoldering and her lips once more cracked to her ears. She's beautiful in the way Maleficent is beautiful. The way people think guns are beautiful. Explosives. Fires.

And I don't care that I never get pleased because I'm fascinated with her the way people are with car accidents.

Dead people.

Tragedies.

She smooths my hair, that smile never leaving her face. I can still smell her, wet and thick. She's on my lips. My nose.

Jade nods in approval and stands again, unhooking the stall door. "I'd wait a few minutes before you come out. Don't want anyone to get any ideas, do we?" She smirks at me and starts to twirl toward the door, her long legs following after her.

I scramble out of the stall, holding the door to keep me up. I'm dizzy. I stood up too fast. "Wait, Jade!"

She spins back to me, her playful expression suddenly shifting to one of annoyance. I know now that I'm just wasting her time, that my short little block of time with her is gone and she wants to get back to Beck or whoever else she's fucking on the side. I know she wants to leave, that I'm just another face to her. So many people would kill for my place and that's all I am, a place. A thing.

"I love -"

"Don't fucking start, Valentine. Don't even." She narrows her eyes at me. I shrink back. I made her mad. She always gets mad when I try to tell her what my heart says when she's cumming into my face or against my hand. She yells at me and hits me and I just duck my head. I never take it back.

"You don't love me. I don't love you. This is just fucking, okay? Not making love. _Fuck_. _Ing_. Do you understand?"

I don't, but I nod. Because it can't not be making love if she squeezes my breasts or bites my earlobe or pants in my ear as she cums.

Jade unlocks the door and disappears. Classes file out. Lockers slam.

And I tell the empty bathroom that I love her, over and over, the smell of her still wrapped around my face.

* * *

To take a break from my other Victorious fic, I decided I would take a new approach to Cat from a darker angle. I'm not sure if I should leave this as a one shot or continue, possibly hook Cat up with Tori in a different way. **What do you think? Leave reviews.**


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